


Something Survives of Us

by j_quadrifrons



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, canon-typical jon's lack of self-care, creators are on hiatus post tropey h/c, season 4 hiatus speculation, soft gay pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-05-03 02:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_quadrifrons/pseuds/j_quadrifrons
Summary: En route to Norway, Martin saves Jon from himself. Again.





	Something Survives of Us

**Author's Note:**

> I *will* write every classic fanfiction trope with these two if it kills me.
> 
> Title from "Icicles" by Patty Griffin (a very Season 4 JonMartin kind of song)

Of course when Basira said she'd booked passage she meant the _Tundra_. Jon doesn't know why he's surprised when he sees the name stenciled on the hulking thing at the dock. A shipping vessel seems excessive for two people traveling to what turns out to be something of a tourist destination, but when he asks, Basira just shrugs and says it's safer. Jon doesn't like it, but he supposes it might well be true.

That lasts for about ten hours, when after a lengthy conversation about the turns their lives have taken Basira admits just who's been providing her all this intel. Jon hasn't given Elias a thought in months but his mind fills with the memory of blood spattered across his desk, Melanie's shocked tears, Martin trying to hold onto anger through his sobs, and he snaps. Accuses her of betraying him, betraying Daisy, of planning to sacrifice all of them to the monstrous thing that Elias serves. When she tells him that he's turning into that thing on his own, Jon spits curses at her he didn't think he knew and storms out onto the icy deck of the ship.

It's unnervingly silent. Of course it is. Away from the bridge, the ship is mostly containers lashed down and, yes, rusted in place. Jon paces the narrow pathways between them, seething, running through everything he might have told Basira in the past few months that had by now surely made its way back to Elias. There's no one to interrupt him. If there is anybody on board aside from Basira and himself, he hasn't seen them. Too much to hope, he supposes bitterly, that Peter Lukas might make an appearance aboard his own ship. Jon thinks he'd rather like to pull a statement from the man just now.

The salt spray is refreshingly cold on his heated skin (and Jon remembers that he used to be cold all the time, but it's been a long while since that was true, another thing to blame Elias for) and the sea air really does clear his head, so he feels no desire to return to the cabin. He doesn't want to rip the memories of her conversations with Elias out of Basira's mind, to review them for all the details that might now be a threat, to do something to her that she'll never forgive, but his control has been slipping for months now and he's too angry still to be sure of himself. So he walks, and eventually he finds a place where the containers are stacked unevenly enough to provide a ledge to sit on.

Jon leans his head against cold metal and closes his eyes. Just for a moment, he thinks. The adrenaline is draining out of him and he just feels tired, the exhaustion of weeks (months) (years) of fear and overwork tugging in his chest, fogging his mind. The ship moves in a steady rhythm beneath him, shifting on the waves, and he loses track of consciousness.

**

He wakes to a shaking and a familiar voice calling his name. Fallen asleep at his desk again -- he shifts to sit up but his spine is already straight, pressed against something hard and unyielding.

"Jon? Oh thank god," Martin says. There's a blindingly hot pressure on his shoulder that with some concentration Jon resolves into the press of Martin's fingers gripping him desperately. Either Martin is too warm, he thinks fuzzily, or he is too cold, and one of those is more likely than the other but he can't think why. He's still half-asleep, maybe, and Martin -- Martin isn't supposed to be here, of course. But he's come back. Jon tries to focus enough to tell Martin how glad he is he came back, realizes his eyes are still closed, blinks them open.

Martin is bending over him, worry all over his face. It's so achingly familiar, so very different from the last time Jon had talked to him, it brings hot tears to Jon's eyes. "Martin," Jon says almost by reflex, so quietly he can barely hear himself, but Martin flushes red and doesn't meet his eyes.

"Okay good," he says, "good, you're awake. Can you stand up, Jon? You're..." His hand squeezes Jon's shoulder, pulls away, drifts back again. Jon leans a little into his touch as if maybe that would stop him leaving again. "It's really cold out here, and I don't know if you can die from hypothermia but that doesn't sound like something I'd like to test right now."

Jon considers. He isn't cold, particularly, but Martin might be right; he hasn't paid much attention to the signals from his body lately. Ever, truth be told, though it's gotten easier now that he's so much more resilient. But Martin is back, and if he's worried then the least Jon can do is help ease his mind. he leans forward, shifts his center of gravity, but his legs don't want to take his weight. Martin's there though, putting an arm around him, so hot pressed up against Jon's side it feels like sitting next to Jude Perry again. There's no pain in this touch, just that steady support and the frustrating numbness of his limbs. Jon's hand finds the one that's not wrapped around his waist and clings.

Martin makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh and Jon's heart skips a beat. He still can't find words, though, and balance is taking an awful lot of attention at the moment, and Martin is very focused. "All right, half way there," he says cheerfully, though Jon can still hear the strain in his voice. "Let's get you inside, all right?" He starts guiding Jon very gently away from the rail, into the pathway between containers. That's right, the _Tundra_ , they're on their way to Norway to stop the end of the world. Again.

It doesn't seem very important at the moment. "You came back," Jon finally manages to say, only a little louder than before. His voice is raspy with sleep and his lips are numb. Maybe he is cold.

There's a long silence, and Jon wonders if his words were lost in the hum of the engines and the wind over the water but eventually Martin says, just as softly, "Jon, I'm not - I came -"

"You're here," he says, because that's what he meant. Martin has his role to play just as Jon has his, and as much as it terrifies him Jon thinks he's maybe beginning to understand that, but Martin is here, right now, at last.

"I'm here," he agrees, quiet and relieved, and he squeezes his arm around Jon a little tighter.

Jon isn't sure where exactly they are when Martin shoulders open a door and pulls Jon into a tiny, bright cabin. The warmth hits him all at once, pins and needles in his frozen skin, and he groans. He's shaking now -- maybe he was shaking the whole time, but now he can feel it, blood rushing through freezing tissue, nerves misfiring wildly. He can't stop shaking, in fact, and it's a little concerning even to him.

But Martin doesn't flinch, pulls Jon over to the bed tucked away in the corner, half built into the wall. He starts tugging at Jon's shirt and Jon flinches away, a well-honed reflex, and Martin sighs at him. "Come on, your clothes are damp, you can't stay like this. Serve you right if you get pneumonia," he mutters, which Jon doesn't think was meant for him to hear. It warms him as much as the shelter of the cabin, though, Martin's familiar solicitousness. He can't believe he used to complain about it.

And he's right again, of course. Jon shrugs his own shirt over his head, but his fingers won't work the button of his trousers, so Martin reaches in with a muttered apology, blushing again. It's an intimacy at once both nerve-wracking and oddly gentle, and Jon doesn't breathe again until Martin leans back, giving him some respectful distance.

Jon peels out of his trousers, the effort exhausting; before he's registered the thump of wet cloth on the wooden flooring Martin is wrapping him up in a soft quilted blanket, rubbing at his arms. He's stopped shaking at last, and he leans closer to Martin, but he still doesn't have much control of his body and winds up leaning more on him than anything. Martin makes that noise again, like he's too surprised to laugh, or maybe (more likely) too put out with Jon's ongoing inability to take care of himself. He wraps his arms around Jon, though, pulling him close and resuming rubbing at his arms, down to his hands where the fingers are curled stiff with cold.

He wonders what the last few months would have been like if Martin had been there to remind him to take care of himself. Wonders if he'd feel any more human. He wouldn't, he thinks, have gone into the coffin after Daisy -- Martin would have hated the idea, would never have put up with Jon's fumbling attempts to make himself an anchor -- and he can't bring himself to regret that. But Jon is also fairly certain that he wouldn't have survived to become something inhuman if Martin hadn't been there for years before, bringing him tea and sometimes sandwiches, reminding him to go home and sleep, asking him questions that dragged him out of his own head. And he finds he can't regret that either, no matter how much he worries that the thing he's allowed himself to become is a danger to everyone, not least the people who love him.

And Martin does love him, he knows that now. He's not sure if it's the kind of Knowing that comes from the Eye or just that tenderness and vulnerability after so much isolation have finally convinced him of what he should have known before, but it's here now, a fact as solid as Martin's chest against his back. And he loves Martin, of course he does, his abandonment would never have hurt so much if he didn't. He goes a little dizzy with the thought, put so clearly at last. There are so few people in his life Jon has loved -- his parents, who he hardly remembers; his grandmother; Georgie -- and Martin. Martin with his unwavering support and devotion, who undoubtedly deserves better than a ruin of a no-longer-human Archivist, but there's a streak of stubborn selfishness Jon has never been able to eradicate that makes him want to try to be good enough for him anyway.

Suddenly it's very important that Martin knows all this. Jon squeezes his hand where Martin has been massaging warmth back into his fingers and although it aches he never wants it to stop. "Martin, I -"

"Shhh," Martin says softly into his hair. "It's all right, I know."

He doesn't know, Jon is sure of that, but arguing takes too much effort and he doesn't want to argue with Martin anyway. Besides, Martin is pulling him down to lay on the bed, curling around him, his steady warmth soaking through the blanket and thawing the last of the chill in Jon's bones. Everything is beginning to ache, and that will be the least of the consequences he'll have to face in the morning, but for right now Jon is content. He falls asleep again, knowing that this time he'll at least be watched over until he wakes.

**Author's Note:**

> Please come yell about TMA with me, I have too many feelings  
> [@j_quadrifrons](https://twitter.com/j_quadrifrons), [backofthebookshelf](https://backofthebookshelf.tumblr.com)


End file.
